This disclosure relates generally to printer utilization within a networked environment, and more particularly to a system and method for printer controller functionality in which device usage statistics and document features are used in determining whether to print a document or portion of a document.
In many networked environments, a potentially large number of users or clients must share resources including input/output devices such as the network's printer(s). Because printed versions are the most widely preferred format for reading documents, in many companies some documents or parts of documents may be printed multiple times, resulting in unnecessary costs in terms of paper, supplies, maintenance, support, lifecycle of the equipment, etc. Multiple copies of documents occur when multiple users desire to read a given document or when one or more users are working on the same document. Multiple copies may also occur when a single user decides to print the same document, or subsequent versions of a given document, at different times. In such cases, there are numerous situations in which duplicate printouts may be avoided or per-page print costs reduced.
Currently this problem is addressed through imposition of user account restrictions, such as print quotas, user identifications, or net addresses. For example, a particular user may be restricted to printing only at certain machines, or a user might be given a quota for printing. Alternatively, the number of pages that can be printed in a certain period of time may be limited, or the types of print jobs or copies that can be made may be limited. However, these approaches do not provide alternative paths to the physical version of the submitted document at a minimum cost from the user perspective. Additionally, they do not allow the printing device to become a manager of the content it prints. Existing printer controllers do not partially locate and track printed documents by any printer within the network, document owners, and available printout qualities as well as document status (draft, finished, active, etc.). Therefore, what is needed is a system and method that reduce overall printed page volume by avoiding duplicate copies of documents or parts of documents and provide unified printed document tracking.
All U.S. patents and published U.S. patent applications cited herein are fully incorporated by reference. The following patents or publications are noted.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0061909 to Ferlitsch et al. (“Scan to Cluster Print Structure and Methodology”) describes a document printing system in which plural, potentially useable printers are reviewed in a preliminary discovery process to assess which ones are currently available for use and, of these, which have the best-suited operational characteristics relative to a particular printing job. The resulting collection of printers is then treated as a cluster tow which a scanned document is appropriately sent for implementation of the job.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0078425 to Sandfort et al. (“System and Method for Tracking Print System Utilization”) describes a system and method for tracking a user's utilization of print resources. Data about a print job is collected from devices in a print pipeline, and is stored in a central database. Alternatively data about the print job is sent to a print accounting service by the devices in the pipeline or data is obtained by a print accounting service by polling of the devices in the pipeline.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0267868 to Wilk (“Method for Monitoring Print Jobs in a Data Processing Network”) teaches a network including connected printers and print clients, with each print client permitting users to submit print jobs to the printers. The printer capacity available to each user is stored within the network and a computer code determines whether to accept a new print job based on a comparison of the capacity required to process the job and the user's available printer capacity. Also included is code for updating the available capacity information either indirectly by periodically adjusting the available capacity information of each user based on an approximation of the amount of print processing that has occurred or directly by determining the actual amount of capacity required to process the user's pending print jobs.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0078332 to Brown (“System and Method for Controlling a Printer Job Responsive to Attribute Analysis”) teaches a method for controlling a printer involving accepting a job request, analyzing attributes of the requested job, and controlling the job output in response to the attribute analysis. Typically, a job is accepted with an associated user ID and a list of permitted attributes is cross-referenced to user ID. The attributes of the requested job are analyzed by comparing the analyzed attributes to permitted attributes. In some aspects of the method, the list of permitted attributes may additionally be cross-referenced to quotas. Job attributes analyzed may include whether the job is color or monochrome, paper size, paper tray to be used, document content, media type, simplex/duplex, stapling, and whether hole punching is requested.
The disclosed embodiments provide examples of improved solutions to the problems noted in the above Background discussion and the art cited therein. There is shown in these examples an improved method for controlling a printer in a networked environment. The method utilizes printer usage statistics and document features to determine whether to print a document or portion of a document, with the owner of the print job interacting with the controller to make this decision. The networked environment includes printers, devices permitting the submittal of print job requests, a print server, and a document repository. The method includes receiving a job request to print a document from a device on the network and either obtaining the document in digital form from the document repository or placing the document in digital form. Document and page specific information are extracted from the document. It is then determined whether printing of the document or a portion of the document is necessary based on analysis of the document and page specific information.
In an alternate embodiment there is disclosed a system for controlling a printer in a networked environment utilizing printer usage statistics and document features to determine whether to print a document or portion of a document. The networked environment includes a plurality of printers, devices permitting the submittal of print job requests, a print server, and a document repository. The system includes means for receiving a job request to print a document from a device on the network, means for obtaining said document in digital form from the document repository or placing said document in digital form. After extracting document and page specific information from said document, it is then determined whether to print the document or a portion of the document and on which printer to direct the job request based on analysis of the document and page specific information.
In yet another embodiment there is disclosed a computer-readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied in the medium which, when the program code is executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform method steps for controlling a printer in a networked environment. The networked environment utilizes printer usage statistics and document features to determine whether to print a document or portion of a document. The networked environment includes a plurality of printers, devices permitting the submittal of print job requests, a print server, and a document repository. The method includes receiving a job request to print a document from a device on the network and obtaining the document in digital form from the document repository or placing the document in digital form. Document and page specific information are extracted from the document. It is then determined whether printing of the document or a portion of the document is necessary based on analysis of the document and page specific information.